Seaport to get its own ambulance station
The BPDA board yesterday approved giving a piece of land at 34 Drydock Ave. in the Raymond Flynn Marine Park to the Boston Public Health Commission for construction of a new two-bay ambulance station.
Boston EMS reports service calls in the Seaport area have doubled over the past ten years, due to a combination of rapid population growth - the area now has 5,600 residents, a 200% increase over 2010 - and increased office space and use of the convention center and Black Falcon cruise terminal along with the growing number of hotel rooms and restaurants and clubs.
The area is currently served by an EMS station on West Broadway.
Construction of the two-story station with eight parking spaces for Boston EMS employees should begin this fall, the BPDA says. The new station will sit on a portion of Pier 10, with the rest of it continuing to remain open to the public, with picnic tables and public restrooms, the BPDA says.
Boston EMS will lease the space for free for at least 20 years.
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ugh. what a waste.
The bPda could of, I don't know, PLANNED and there could have been police/fire/EMS/school/library/medical center in any of the mega towers we already have there.
Instead, we're taking a bit of land and building a stand-alone EMS building. In the middle of a city.
Way to go, BRA.
I expect nothing and am still consistently disappointed
They're taking some of the very limited public park/open space in the seaport instead of getting it built into any of the ongoing or upcoming developments. Truly pathetic work by the city and BPDA.
What?
34 Drydock is an existing building. Granted, it's made up of 2 "mobile office" trailers, but it's not currently park space. If anything, rather than the current access from the pier side closest to the dry dock, they'll take away parking spaces so the ambulances can drive straight onto the street.
OK - upon further reading of the lease, it's going next to 34 Drydock, where the public toilet rooms are located. But it's still not taking park space away, as far as I can tell. And it is eliminating 8 parking spaces, so that should make anti-car folks happy.
The first sentence of the lease area literally states
“ Lease Area: Approximately 20,000 square feet of land on Pier #10 park”. It’s also not eliminating 8 parking spots, it’s taking 8 public street spots and reserving them for the ems crews: “ Eight (8) parking spaces are proposed for EMS crew members”
And poor placement
The ambulances will be way way waaaaaay down at one end of the peninsula instead of centrally located. 65% or more of the 1-2 mile "service area" is harbor.
Where is the closest hospital
Where is the closest hospital to the Seaport?
Guessing...
...as the crow flies, BCH? But the crow's not flying, so maybe MGH?
Geographically - Tufts
The NEMC is closest straight-line from Seaport.
By driving time (thanks, Dr. Google), BMC seems to win from most points of the Seaport, depending on where they are and traffic, you can either quickly access the highway or the South Boston Bypass road to get to the Mass Ave Connector. Both MGH and Tufts NEMC have more city streets to navigate along the way, even an ambulance can't magically make the vehicles in front of them disappear.